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Title: Their Much Speaking
Author: William Davenport Adams [
More Titles by Adams]
The 'dreary drip of dilatory declamation' to which Lord Salisbury, in one of his happiest phrases, once drew attention, shows no sign of exhaustion, or even of diminution; and the Conservative chief has followed up his admirable epigram by picturing the time when, all rational discussion and all beneficial legislation being out of the question, the House of Commons may become a mere mechanical puppet-show, and may present the spectacle of 'a steam Irish Party, an electric Ministry, and a clockwork Speaker.' It is certain that there never was so much talk in the Lower House as at the present moment; but it is also certain that the complaint of 'much speaking' has before now been frequently preferred against both Chambers. Politicians have always been a wordy race, and many a sharp shaft has been aimed at their besetting weakness. A last-century satirist once wrote:
'"Do this," cries one side of St. Stephen's great hall;
"Do just the reverse," the minority bawl....
And what is the end of this mighty tongue-war?
--Nothing's done for the State till the State is done for!'
And, unfortunately, the quality of the talk has often been as poor as the quantity was considerable. It was, we believe, a pre-Victorian pen which perpetrated this couplet on the House of Commons:
'To wonder now at Balaam's ass were weak:
Is there a night that asses do not speak?'
Fun has constantly been made of the typical drawbacks of political oratory--of the dull men, of the heavy, of the shallow, of the unintelligible, and what not. We have been told how 'a lord of senatorial fame' was known at once by his portrait, because the painter had so 'play'd his game' that it 'made one even yawn at sight.' It has been said of an M.P., that his speeches 'possessed such remarkable weight' that it was 'really a trouble to bear them.' Of a third it was written that his discourses had some resemblance to an hour-glass, because, the longer time they ran, the shallower they grew. Of yet another orator we read that his reasoning was really deep, his argument profound, 'for deuce a bit could anybody see the ground.' Nor have certain historical personages been able to escape the lash. When Admiral Vernon was appointed to take charge of the herring fishery, Horace Walpole wrote:
'Long in the Senate had brave Vernon rail'd,
And all mankind with bitter tongue assail'd;
Sick of his noise, we wearied Heav'n with pray'r
In his own element to place the tar.
The gods at length have yielded to our wish,
And bade him rule o'er Billingsgate and fish.'
From which it will be gathered anew that a somewhat bitter style of debate is no novelty in this country--that strong language has been heard in the House of Commons ante Agamemnona.
Within living memory a member has dared to suggest that certain of his opponents had come into the House not wholly sober. Who does not remember the epigrams which were based on Pitt's addiction, real or supposed, to intoxicating liquors? Porson is said to have composed one hundred such 'paper pellets' in one night, as, for example:
'"Who's up?" inquired Burke of a friend at the door;
"Oh, no one," said Paddy, "tho' Pitt's on the floor."'
After this, most other insinuations become almost harmless; and the accusation of mere twaddling, such as that which was brought against Mr. Urquhart in the following lines, seems, by comparison, trivial:
'When Palmerston begins to speak,
He moves the House--as facts can prove.
Let Urquhart rise, with accents weak,
The House itself begins to move.'
By the side of twaddling, again, mere rambling grows venial. One of H. J. Byron's burlesque heroes says of Cerberus:
'My dog, who picks up everything one teaches,
Has got "three heads," like Mr. Gladstone's speeches.
But, as might naturally be expected,
His are considerably more connected.'
But it is against Parliamentary long-windedness, in particular, that most sarcasm, whether in verse or in prose, has been directed. Everybody remembers Moore's comparison of the Lord Castlereagh of his time to a pump, which up and down its awkward arm doth sway,
'And coolly spout, and spout, and spout away,
In one weak, washy, everlasting flood.'
This has always been a stock quotation to use against oratory of the 'dreary' and 'dilatory' order. Then, Brougham had the good sense to recognise his own sins in respect to 'much speaking.' Punch made someone ask himself 'if Brougham thinks as much as he talks;' but the Lord Chancellor removed the pungency from gibes of that sort by writing his own epitaph, in which he declares that
'My fate a moral teaches,
The ark in which my body lies
Would not contain one-half my speeches.'
It was asserted of Lord George Bentinck that true sportsmen 'loved his prate,' because his speech recalled the 'four-mile course,' his arguments the 'feather-weight.' One is reminded, in this connection, of the preacher of whom it was observed that he 'so lengthily his subject did pursue,' that it was feared 'he had, indeed, eternity in view.' And, perhaps, a long discourse is none the more acceptable when it is palpable to the hearers that the discourser has committed it to memory, and is bound to go on to the bitter end. Possibly this adds to the feeling of exasperation. Nevertheless, there are those who must learn their speeches by heart, or else not speak at all. As Luttrell contended that Lord Dudley had said of himself:
'In vain my affections the ladies are seeking;
If I give up my heart, there's an end to my speaking.'
However, it is, perhaps, scarcely fair of laymen to dwell too sternly on the joy which so many legislators seem to feel in hearing their own voices. Man is a talking animal, and can 'hold forth' outside the Houses of Parliament as well as in. And though in the term 'man' we may include woman, let us give no countenance to the old calumny, that the fairer and weaker is also the more talkative sex. There are some old lines to the effect that Nature wisely forbade a beard to grow on woman's chin,
'For how could she be shaved, whate'er the skill,
Whose tongue would never let her chin be still?'
There is also a certain epitaph on an old maid,
'Who from her cradle talk'd till death,
And ne'er before was out of breath,'
and of whom it was opined that in heaven she'd be unblest, because she loathed a place of rest. But these flouts and sneers are as cheap as they are venerable. Let the ladies take heart. Men have been censured for their 'much speaking' at least as frequently as women. Prior declared of one Lysander that he ought to possess the art of talk, if he did not, for he practised 'full fourteen hours in four-and-twenty.' And we owe to a more recent writer this paraphrase of an epigram by Macentinus:
'Black locks hath Gabriel, beard that's white--
The reason, sir, is plain:
Gabriel works hard from morn till night,
More with his jaw than brain.'
It is well that satire should go that way for a change. All the talking is not done by women or by Parliament. There is, at times, as much chatter in the smoking-room as in the boudoir and the Senate. Tongues, as well as beards, 'wag all,' when we are 'merry in hall.'
[The end]
William Davenport Adams's essay: Their Much Speaking
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